


more than friends.

by ekoroshia



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: M/M, please enjoy them, technically pre relationship but eehhhh, to make up for the angsty last upload
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 14:41:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14499234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ekoroshia/pseuds/ekoroshia
Summary: Shuichi wasn’t sure when things had started to change between them, but he found himself very glad that they had.





	more than friends.

**Author's Note:**

> ekoroshia get a beta reader challenge
> 
> this is partly to make up for my last upload and also partly to say sorry for making everyone wait so long for part 2 of the older au. it's coming i promise.
> 
> there's only 2 lines of dialogue in this....wild

When  _ it _ had changed, Shuichi couldn’t say.

 

It had been plaguing his mind for the past few weeks, ever since he’d started noticing little differences in the ways they interacted. The way they greeted each other and said farewell for the day. The congratulations at his birthday were as they always had been, except from him. To be sure, they had been spending more time together lately; in the library, reading together or studying, in the cafe down the road, recounting tales from their classes. Even visiting each other’s rooms on occasion, something Shuichi knew  _ he _ didn’t do with anyone else.

 

Since noticing the shift in the way they treated each other his instinct to over-analyse had gone into overdrive, and he pondered on all of this while brushing his teeth and readying his uniform for another school day. 

 

As he moved to leave his dorm room, he realized he’d timed it to perfectly match up with his schedule, and the hand that held onto the doorknob faltered slightly. Could he be brave enough to, even with these thoughts swirling in his head, talk normally to him? Shuichi supposed now was as good a time as any to find out - sooner rather than later was a principle he rarely upheld, but had been trying to insert into his daily life more often lately.

 

It was something Kaede had tried to teach him. Honestly, he wasn’t sure he could do it, wasn't sure he could do anything, but he promised to try, for her. Some days he wished he could disappear between the cracks of the floorboards, letting deadlines creep up on him and his mistakes flood the space he occupied. But for her, he would try.

 

She’d been the first person to talk to him in this academy, the first one to try and make friends with him even as he shrank away from attention and buried himself in a book at the back of the classroom. Which was why his heart should have strayed in her direction, should have taken her friendly gestures and twisted them into something more romantic in his head. But they weren’t, and his heart didn’t.

 

Instead, to his surprise as well as hers, the person who captured his attention was someone he’d pointed out as being exactly the kind of person he didn’t think he’d get along with. Someone just the right side of laid back, but with a tension Shuichi could see most clearly when matters of love and family were discussed.

 

Rantaro Amami.

 

He was, in Shuichi’s humble opinion, no good to get close to. He seemed to have too many secrets, and Shuichi didn’t trust that for the same reason he didn’t trust Kokichi. Secrets meant lies, and lies meant mysteries, and while he was partial to puzzles and puzzle-solving, he was not so naive as to believe that someone who held everything close to their chest was someone he should trust. That was, after all, why he liked Kaede and Kaito so much - neither of them hid much from him at all. If they were sad, they let him know. If he’d made a mistake, they’d tell him. They encouraged him to be more open, and in exchange they were more open with him. 

 

They were the kind of people Shuichi thought it would be good to be around. He hadn’t taken notes, per se, but he had observed. Had watched. Had mentally noted the variations in his classmates’ demeanours, and used that to determine who he should avoid, and who he should allow to get close should they seem interested enough to talk to him.

 

Which was precisely why, given the recent direction his thoughts had taken regarding Rantaro, he was honestly stumped. He wasn’t foolish, or unobservant, he knew that Rantaro had shifted in the way he treated Shuichi too. The problem was, Shuichi couldn’t for the life of him figure out when it had changed, or why.

 

If he were feeling particularly optimistic (something he didn’t normally like doing) he might venture a guess at it being a sign they were true friends. Or something to that effect. As it happened though that wasn’t the direction his hopes had gone. He found himself staring at the doorknob he still gripped and wondering if maybe, just maybe, his feelings weren’t _entirely_ unrequited.

 

The sound of a door opening on the other side jolted him from his musings, and he held his breath, trying to decide whether or not he should join the other person. Logically he knew it had to have been Rantaro; the two of them were the only people who got up early enough to arrive at the classroom with so much time to spare. It wasn’t until there was a knock at his door and a soft call of his name that he realised he’d been holding his breath, and he stumbled through a reply, hastily making it seem like he’d been busy when Rantaro knocked.

 

He almost regretted opening the door at all when he was confronted with that annoyingly gentle smile. It was, like many of Rantaro’s expressions, carefully constructed, and Shuichi had learnt enough about reading faces to know that it was just  a fraction more unguarded than usual. Not much, but enough for him to notice.

 

“Are you ready?” Rantaro asked, cutting cleanly through Shuichi’s thoughts of what a genuine smile would look like on him.

 

“Ah- yeah, sure. I was...I just had to get my hat.” It was a lame excuse and he knew it, and from the flicker of suspicion that went through Rantaro’s eyes, he did too. Thankfully though he chose not to comment, and nodded, smiling a little wider than before as Shuichi stepped out into the hall.

 

Usually they’d make idle conversation as they went, talking about the days past, Kokichi’s antics, and about their mutual appreciation for Kaede’s efforts to get the class united. She was class president after all, and did a wonderful job at bringing everyone together. There were wild cards, like Kokichi, and people who didn’t seem to  _ want _ to fit in, like Maki, but Kaede’s perseverance tended to win over their stubbornness. In Maki’s case at least. Shuichi wasn’t sure  _ anyone _ knew what Kokichi was thinking.

 

Today though, there was a heavy silence around them. It wasn’t uncomfortable exactly, but Shuichi fiddled with his fingers as they walked, a nervous habit he’d developed when he was a child and that persisted even here.

 

Twisting his hands over one another caught Rantaro’s attention, and Shuichi’s hundred mile an hour thought pattern was interrupted when a hand came to lie gently over his. He froze, and the boy next to him stopped walking too, but did not remove his hand. Nervously he raised his eyes to peer at Rantaro from under the brim of his cap, and was surprised to find a smile he’d not seen before tugging at the corners of his lips.

 

It was lopsided, the left corner pulled up a little more than the right, as though he didn’t smile like that often. Shuichi thought it was beautiful.

 

They said nothing, though in hindsight Shuichi supposed they didn’t need to, and instead he allowed Rantaro to gently pry his worrying hands apart. He held onto one, and when they returned to his sides, Rantaro smoothly slid his palm into Shuichi’s. He glanced down at their hands, and watched as Rantaro twined their fingers together. He looked back up at Rantaro, and perhaps to his own surprise, couldn't help but smile gently back up at him.

  
Shuichi wasn’t sure when  _ it _ had changed, but he found himself very glad that it had.


End file.
